Starting with a packed house on the night of October 13 and concluding right after Thanksgiving, MoMA showcased “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979,” the largest retrospective of Iranian cinema ever held inside or outside of Iran. With close to 70 films covering the pre-revolutionary period, there were works from Iran’s most famous filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami; the most famous film of this era, the late Dariush Mehrjui’s The Cow; and repertory favorites like Ebrahim Golestan’s Brick and Mirror, Bahram Beyzaie’s Downpour and Forough Farrokhzad’s The House is Black. But, significantly, there were also films by lesser-known but just as vital […]
The post “The Grandest Orphan Cinema”: Ehsan Khoshbakht on MoMA’s “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979” Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “The Grandest Orphan Cinema”: Ehsan Khoshbakht on MoMA’s “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979” Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/31/2024
- by René Baharmast
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Starting with a packed house on the night of October 13 and concluding right after Thanksgiving, MoMA showcased “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979,” the largest retrospective of Iranian cinema ever held inside or outside of Iran. With close to 70 films covering the pre-revolutionary period, there were works from Iran’s most famous filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami; the most famous film of this era, the late Dariush Mehrjui’s The Cow; and repertory favorites like Ebrahim Golestan’s Brick and Mirror, Bahram Beyzaie’s Downpour and Forough Farrokhzad’s The House is Black. But, significantly, there were also films by lesser-known but just as vital […]
The post “The Grandest Orphan Cinema”: Ehsan Khoshbakht on MoMA’s “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979” Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “The Grandest Orphan Cinema”: Ehsan Khoshbakht on MoMA’s “Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979” Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/31/2024
- by René Baharmast
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Tree-lined alleys, autumn leaves enveloping the ground beneath, underground gatherings resounding with music and singing, a lone woman protester being pushed by the police. But what remains constant in this collage of Iran, is poetry haunting and evocative. With words, with silence.
Filmmaker Sreemoyee Singh’s documentary ‘And, Towards Happy Alleys’ screened to a full house during the ongoing Dharamshala International Film Festival (Diff), one of India’s finest festivals, goes beyond the young filmmaker’s fascination with Iranian cinema and poet Forugh Farrokhzad, and takes a deep dive into contemporary the Iranian society much divorced from the western gaze at the country.
Created as part of a Ph.D thesis about Iranian new wave cinema, the movie sees the Kolkata-based Singh, who learned Farsi at Tehran University in conversation and singing with master filmmakers like Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Shirvani.
“I am a literature student who fell in love with Iranian poetry,...
Filmmaker Sreemoyee Singh’s documentary ‘And, Towards Happy Alleys’ screened to a full house during the ongoing Dharamshala International Film Festival (Diff), one of India’s finest festivals, goes beyond the young filmmaker’s fascination with Iranian cinema and poet Forugh Farrokhzad, and takes a deep dive into contemporary the Iranian society much divorced from the western gaze at the country.
Created as part of a Ph.D thesis about Iranian new wave cinema, the movie sees the Kolkata-based Singh, who learned Farsi at Tehran University in conversation and singing with master filmmakers like Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Shirvani.
“I am a literature student who fell in love with Iranian poetry,...
- 11/7/2023
- by Agency News Desk
- GlamSham
Tree-lined alleys, autumn leaves enveloping the ground beneath, underground gatherings resounding with music and singing, a lone woman protester being pushed by the police. But what remains constant in this collage of Iran, is poetry haunting and evocative. With words, with silence.
Filmmaker Sreemoyee Singh’s documentary ‘And, Towards Happy Alleys’ screened to a full house during the ongoing Dharamshala International Film Festival (Diff), one of India’s finest festivals, goes beyond the young filmmaker’s fascination with Iranian cinema and poet Forugh Farrokhzad, and takes a deep dive into contemporary the Iranian society much divorced from the western gaze at the country.
Created as part of a Ph.D thesis about Iranian new wave cinema, the movie sees the Kolkata-based Singh, who learned Farsi at Tehran University in conversation and singing with master filmmakers like Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Shirvani.
“I am a literature student who fell in love with Iranian poetry,...
Filmmaker Sreemoyee Singh’s documentary ‘And, Towards Happy Alleys’ screened to a full house during the ongoing Dharamshala International Film Festival (Diff), one of India’s finest festivals, goes beyond the young filmmaker’s fascination with Iranian cinema and poet Forugh Farrokhzad, and takes a deep dive into contemporary the Iranian society much divorced from the western gaze at the country.
Created as part of a Ph.D thesis about Iranian new wave cinema, the movie sees the Kolkata-based Singh, who learned Farsi at Tehran University in conversation and singing with master filmmakers like Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Shirvani.
“I am a literature student who fell in love with Iranian poetry,...
- 11/7/2023
- by Agency News Desk
A passionate friendship spanning a turbulent decade marked by two unlikely uprisings forms the emotional heart of “Between Revolutions,” Romanian filmmaker Vlad Petri’s powerful hybrid documentary that plays this week at the Transilvania Film Festival.
Using extensive archival footage, Petri’s sophomore feature depicts the intense bond forged between two young women studying medicine in Bucharest in the 1970s. When political turmoil begins to sweep across Iran, their lives are drawn apart, as the Iranian-born Zahra is forced to return home, leaving her Romanian friend Maria behind.
Over the next decade, the two women maintain their connection through a series of letters, chronicling their struggles as women fighting for a voice while their respective countries move in divergent directions.
Since premiering in the Berlin Film Festival’s Forum strand, where it won the Fipresci Award, the film has enjoyed an extended festival run, including stops at Cph:dox, Zagreb Doc,...
Using extensive archival footage, Petri’s sophomore feature depicts the intense bond forged between two young women studying medicine in Bucharest in the 1970s. When political turmoil begins to sweep across Iran, their lives are drawn apart, as the Iranian-born Zahra is forced to return home, leaving her Romanian friend Maria behind.
Over the next decade, the two women maintain their connection through a series of letters, chronicling their struggles as women fighting for a voice while their respective countries move in divergent directions.
Since premiering in the Berlin Film Festival’s Forum strand, where it won the Fipresci Award, the film has enjoyed an extended festival run, including stops at Cph:dox, Zagreb Doc,...
- 6/12/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
A locked-off camera can convey many things — watchfulness, stealthiness, clinical remove or elegant restraint — but seldom is it as evocatively accusatory as in Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari’s “Terrestrial Verses.” Here, its use over a series of stationary vignettes, bookended by dramatic images of urban collapse, becomes an increasingly inspired choice even as the themes start to repeat and the resonances with the ongoing Women Life Freedom movement in Iran become more apparent. Putting the viewer in the uncomfortable position of interviewer/interrogator in nine encounters between everyday Iranians and some manner of authority figure, this is punchy first-person filmmaking, from the point of view of the last person you want to be.
Some of the stories are mildly comedic in tone, especially early on. In the first of cinematographer Adib Sobhani’s crisp, boxed-in 4:3 compositions, we are introduced to a father (Bahram Ark) being chastised for not...
Some of the stories are mildly comedic in tone, especially early on. In the first of cinematographer Adib Sobhani’s crisp, boxed-in 4:3 compositions, we are introduced to a father (Bahram Ark) being chastised for not...
- 6/8/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari‘s “Terrestrial Verses,” the sole Iranian film premiering in Cannes’ Official Selection, has been acquired for distribution in key European territories.
Represented by Films Boutique, “Terrestrial Verses” has been acquired for France (Arp Selection), Benelux (September Films) and Germany/Austria (Neue Visionen). All three banners are leading distributors in their respective territories. Those deals were closed following the film’s well-received world premiere.
“Terrestrial Verses” marks the first collaboration between Khatami and Asgari, who are both acclaimed directors.
Khatami previously wrote and directed “Oblivion Verses” which won best screenplay and the Fipresci prizes at Venice in 2017. Asgari, meanwhile, previously directed “Until Tomorrow” which premiered at Berlin last year, and presented two shorts at Cannes, “More Than Two Hours” in 2013 et “Il Silenzio” in 2016.
The film’s title is a reference to a poet by famed Iranian Poet Forugh Farrokhzad. When describing the film, Gabor Greiner,...
Represented by Films Boutique, “Terrestrial Verses” has been acquired for France (Arp Selection), Benelux (September Films) and Germany/Austria (Neue Visionen). All three banners are leading distributors in their respective territories. Those deals were closed following the film’s well-received world premiere.
“Terrestrial Verses” marks the first collaboration between Khatami and Asgari, who are both acclaimed directors.
Khatami previously wrote and directed “Oblivion Verses” which won best screenplay and the Fipresci prizes at Venice in 2017. Asgari, meanwhile, previously directed “Until Tomorrow” which premiered at Berlin last year, and presented two shorts at Cannes, “More Than Two Hours” in 2013 et “Il Silenzio” in 2016.
The film’s title is a reference to a poet by famed Iranian Poet Forugh Farrokhzad. When describing the film, Gabor Greiner,...
- 5/24/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
A daunting task faces the protagonists in Terrestrial Verses (Ayeh haye zamini): Each of them is trying to reason with a government bureaucrat or other self-important authority figure. They’re all residents of Tehran, and there’s something specific to Iran in the oppressive regulations and catch-22s that hinder them, but there’s universal resonance, too, in the escalating lunacy and bleak implications.
In 10 of the feature’s 11 subtly interlocking segments, a single character faces an offscreen interlocutor. The fixed camera holds each one in an unwavering embrace as they try to make sense of arbitrary rules and demands. Inspired by the intricate rhymes of ghazal, a classic form of Persian poetry, writer-directors Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami have constructed a thoroughly modern work of bracing concision, elegance and blistering deadpan humor, one that pulses with sorrow and outrage over the absurdity of authoritarian dictates that aim to crush souls.
In 10 of the feature’s 11 subtly interlocking segments, a single character faces an offscreen interlocutor. The fixed camera holds each one in an unwavering embrace as they try to make sense of arbitrary rules and demands. Inspired by the intricate rhymes of ghazal, a classic form of Persian poetry, writer-directors Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami have constructed a thoroughly modern work of bracing concision, elegance and blistering deadpan humor, one that pulses with sorrow and outrage over the absurdity of authoritarian dictates that aim to crush souls.
- 5/23/2023
- by Sheri Linden
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Films Boutique, the Berlin-based company behind “Pacifiction” and “The Burdened,” has come on board three international movies slated for the Cannes Film Festival. These include a pair of films set for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, “Terrestrial Verses” and “The Buriti Flower,” as well as “Tiger Stripes” which will bow at Critics’ Week.
“Terrestrial Verses,” directed by Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari, is the sole Iranian film premiering in the Official Selection. The movie marks the first collaboration between these two critically acclaimed directors.
Khatami previously wrote and directed “Oblivion Verses” which won best screenplay and the Fipresci prizes at Venice in 2017. Asgari, meanwhile, previously directed “Until Tomorrow” which premiered at Berlin last year, and presented two shorts at Cannes, “More Than Two Hours” in 2013 et “Il Silenzio” in 2016.
While the plot remains under wrap, the film’s title is a reference to a poet by famed Iranian Poet Forugh Farrokhzad.
“Terrestrial Verses,” directed by Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari, is the sole Iranian film premiering in the Official Selection. The movie marks the first collaboration between these two critically acclaimed directors.
Khatami previously wrote and directed “Oblivion Verses” which won best screenplay and the Fipresci prizes at Venice in 2017. Asgari, meanwhile, previously directed “Until Tomorrow” which premiered at Berlin last year, and presented two shorts at Cannes, “More Than Two Hours” in 2013 et “Il Silenzio” in 2016.
While the plot remains under wrap, the film’s title is a reference to a poet by famed Iranian Poet Forugh Farrokhzad.
- 4/26/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
The 57th edition of Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival, which runs June 30-July 8, has planned a retrospective program focused on Iranian cinema with a selection of films made in the past four years. The festival will also celebrate the work of Japanese filmmaker Yasuzo Masumura.
Commenting on the Iranian cinema program, the festival said in a statement: “Collectively these works offer an insightful testimony of the burning creativity of Iran’s artists in face of the challenging reality. Nine mostly young filmmakers – urgent, unheard voices – who palpably bear a spiritual connection to the previous generations of their country’s greats, tackle the current reality with a remarkable sensitivity and great inventiveness.
“Melancholic dramas, comedies, war movies, sci-fis…films about love, and films within films. Together, these nine unique and intensely personal testimonies form a multi-dimensional mosaic that reflect the collective spirit and openness of Iran’s young cinema of today.
Commenting on the Iranian cinema program, the festival said in a statement: “Collectively these works offer an insightful testimony of the burning creativity of Iran’s artists in face of the challenging reality. Nine mostly young filmmakers – urgent, unheard voices – who palpably bear a spiritual connection to the previous generations of their country’s greats, tackle the current reality with a remarkable sensitivity and great inventiveness.
“Melancholic dramas, comedies, war movies, sci-fis…films about love, and films within films. Together, these nine unique and intensely personal testimonies form a multi-dimensional mosaic that reflect the collective spirit and openness of Iran’s young cinema of today.
- 4/25/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Vlad Petri’s second feature is set to premiere in the Forum strand.
Paris-based documentary specialist Cat&Docs has acquired sales rights to Vlad Petri’s Between Revolutions, ahead of its world premiere in the Forum strand of this year’s Berlinale.
The film follows a correspondence between two women, Zahra and Maria. After meeting at university in Bucharest in the 1970s, Zahra returns home to Iran in 1979 to topple the Shah while Maria experiences the onerous years of Ceausescu’s Romania. Their biographies run in parallel via images of everyday life and footage of revolution.
The letters are inspired by...
Paris-based documentary specialist Cat&Docs has acquired sales rights to Vlad Petri’s Between Revolutions, ahead of its world premiere in the Forum strand of this year’s Berlinale.
The film follows a correspondence between two women, Zahra and Maria. After meeting at university in Bucharest in the 1970s, Zahra returns home to Iran in 1979 to topple the Shah while Maria experiences the onerous years of Ceausescu’s Romania. Their biographies run in parallel via images of everyday life and footage of revolution.
The letters are inspired by...
- 1/19/2023
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
“Cinema is not pages and it’s not minutes: it’s the way you look at the minute that passes,” Syrian director Ameer Fakher Eldin is talking about the 55-page script of “Yunan,” his follow up to “The Stranger” (Al Garib), which played at Venice Days in 2021. Eldin knows from the experience of editing his first film that one page doesn’t equal one minute. “It’s a two hour film,” he says.
Eldin’s second feature is due to film in the first half of 2023 and is currently being presented at this week’s Red Sea Souk Project Market of the Red Sea Film Festival. Iconic figure of New German Cinema Hanna Schygulla and Syrian actor Bassem Yakhour have both been cast in the production. They join Lebanese actor Georges Khabbaz (“Capernaum”), and German actor Sibel Kekilli, from “Game of Thrones” and Fatih Akin’s “Head On.”
Filming will...
Eldin’s second feature is due to film in the first half of 2023 and is currently being presented at this week’s Red Sea Souk Project Market of the Red Sea Film Festival. Iconic figure of New German Cinema Hanna Schygulla and Syrian actor Bassem Yakhour have both been cast in the production. They join Lebanese actor Georges Khabbaz (“Capernaum”), and German actor Sibel Kekilli, from “Game of Thrones” and Fatih Akin’s “Head On.”
Filming will...
- 12/5/2022
- by John Bleasdale
- Variety Film + TV
Entrance to the Invisible Cinema at the Austrian Filmmuseum.In 1989, on the occasion of its 25th anniversary, the Austrian Filmmuseum opened its famed “Invisible Cinema,” according to specifications laid out by filmmaker, theorist, and museum co-founder Peter Kubelka. Modeled after Kubelka’s original invisible cinema, built in 1970 at New York’s Anthology Film Archives, the Filmmuseum’s version is a black box creation that, by allowing for the least amount of peripheral light possible, points the viewer’s focus directly at the projected image. It is, as far as seating, quality of projection, and immersive atmosphere, an essentially perfect cinema. It was one of the places I most eagerly hoped to visit upon my first trip to the Vienna International Film Festival (Viennale), which this year celebrated its 60th anniversary; luckily, as one of the the festival’s primary venues, the Filmmuseum is a frequent destination during the Viennale’s...
- 11/15/2022
- MUBI
Ramin Bahrani, Oscar-nominated writer/director of The White Tiger, discusses a few of his favorite movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
The White Tiger (2021)
Man Push Cart (2005)
Chop Shop (2007)
99 Homes (2015)
The Boys From Fengkuei (1983)
The Time To Live And The Time To Die (1985)
The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
La Terra Trema (1948)
Umberto D (1952)
Where Is The Friend’s Home? (1987)
Nomadland (2020)
The Runner (1984)
Bashu, the Little Stranger (1989)
A Moment Of Innocence a.k.a. Bread And Flower Pot (1996)
The House Is Black (1963)
The Conversation (1974)
Mean Streets (1973)
Nashville (1975)
Aguirre, The Wrath Of God (1972)
The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
Paris, Texas (1984)
Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)
Vagabond (1985)
Luzzu (2021)
Bait (2019)
Sweet Sixteen (2002)
Abigail’s Party (1977)
Meantime (1983)
Fish Tank (2009)
Do The Right Thing (1989)
Malcolm X (1992)
Nothing But A Man (1964)
Goodbye Solo (2008)
The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973)
Dekalog (1989)
The Double Life Of Veronique...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
The White Tiger (2021)
Man Push Cart (2005)
Chop Shop (2007)
99 Homes (2015)
The Boys From Fengkuei (1983)
The Time To Live And The Time To Die (1985)
The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
La Terra Trema (1948)
Umberto D (1952)
Where Is The Friend’s Home? (1987)
Nomadland (2020)
The Runner (1984)
Bashu, the Little Stranger (1989)
A Moment Of Innocence a.k.a. Bread And Flower Pot (1996)
The House Is Black (1963)
The Conversation (1974)
Mean Streets (1973)
Nashville (1975)
Aguirre, The Wrath Of God (1972)
The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
Paris, Texas (1984)
Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)
Vagabond (1985)
Luzzu (2021)
Bait (2019)
Sweet Sixteen (2002)
Abigail’s Party (1977)
Meantime (1983)
Fish Tank (2009)
Do The Right Thing (1989)
Malcolm X (1992)
Nothing But A Man (1964)
Goodbye Solo (2008)
The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973)
Dekalog (1989)
The Double Life Of Veronique...
- 4/20/2021
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
There’s an accepted story we tell ourselves about the history of the movies, which goes something like this: Technological inventions in the late 1800s lead to a new type of mass entertainment and a burgeoning art form in the early part of the 20th century. Though the epicenter and main exporter of moviemaking is earmarked by many to be Hollywood, USA, this “moving pictures” phenomenon spreads far and wide outside of America’s borders — not just in France (who’ve been making films since the very beginning and is...
- 9/1/2020
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Editor’s note: Filmmaker Ramin Bahrani has been a major presence in American independent film since his 2005 debut, “Man Push Cart.” His most recent film, “99 Homes,” was released last year. The filmmaker’s style in his early work is heavily influenced by the late Abbas Kiarostami, with whom Bahrani formed a relationship over the course of his career. With the news of Kiarostami’s death at the age of 76, Bahrani shared the following tribute to his longtime mentor.
When I saw “Where is the Friend’s House?” as a teenager, my path as a burgeoning filmmaker was irrevocably altered. I immediately tracked down VHS copies (badly dubbed, pirated) of “Close Up” and “Life and Nothing Else…” and watched them in my hometown of Winston-Salem, Nc, wondering how the prosaic can be revealed with such a profound depth of poetry. Can cinema be like this?
See MoreAbbas Kiarostami Remembered: Why He...
When I saw “Where is the Friend’s House?” as a teenager, my path as a burgeoning filmmaker was irrevocably altered. I immediately tracked down VHS copies (badly dubbed, pirated) of “Close Up” and “Life and Nothing Else…” and watched them in my hometown of Winston-Salem, Nc, wondering how the prosaic can be revealed with such a profound depth of poetry. Can cinema be like this?
See MoreAbbas Kiarostami Remembered: Why He...
- 7/5/2016
- by Indiewire Staff
- Indiewire
“Criminally unfair. Those are the two words that spring to mind when I consider the fate of female directors throughout the short history of the cinematic medium. Not enough opportunity. Appalling sexism. Terrible chance and circumstances, coupled with biases, slander and mistrust,” our friend Scout Tafoya stated when asking a group of critics for their favorite films directed by female filmmakers. He added, “When I began asking for these lists from all the critics below many replied reluctantly. Their reasoning that so many of their films would be modern, that so many of the classics would be homogenous, is not without justification. But it’s no one’s fault that we all fall back on the same seven classics.”
He continues, “It’s a worldwide shortage of support and funding for female artists. It’s a lack of distribution of more esoteric work by women. It’s many major film...
He continues, “It’s a worldwide shortage of support and funding for female artists. It’s a lack of distribution of more esoteric work by women. It’s many major film...
- 11/17/2015
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Themed programme to include discussions with 15 leading female directors including Kim Longinotto.
The International Film Festival Amsterdam (Idfa) is to investigates the role of women in documentary as part of its next edition (Nov 19-30).
The Female Gaze will comrise a programme of titles by women directors as well as discussions with filmmakers at the festival.
A total of 15 female directors, including Pirjo Honkasalo, Barbara Kopple and Kim Longinotto, have compiled a programme of old and new documentaries by themselves and others.
Idfa will also investigate the share female directors have had of the festival’s own selections during the past ten years, and attention will be devoted to the question of how women are represented in documentaries and of whether a ‘female gaze’ can be said to exist within the documentary genre.
The festival will organise a debate on the role of women for the documentary industry on Nov 22.
The directors who made a selection for Idfa...
The International Film Festival Amsterdam (Idfa) is to investigates the role of women in documentary as part of its next edition (Nov 19-30).
The Female Gaze will comrise a programme of titles by women directors as well as discussions with filmmakers at the festival.
A total of 15 female directors, including Pirjo Honkasalo, Barbara Kopple and Kim Longinotto, have compiled a programme of old and new documentaries by themselves and others.
Idfa will also investigate the share female directors have had of the festival’s own selections during the past ten years, and attention will be devoted to the question of how women are represented in documentaries and of whether a ‘female gaze’ can be said to exist within the documentary genre.
The festival will organise a debate on the role of women for the documentary industry on Nov 22.
The directors who made a selection for Idfa...
- 9/9/2014
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
The Wind Will Carry Us
Written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami
Iran 1999
To say that Abbas Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us is an unhurried film would be quite the understatement. This deliberately crafted and contemplative work, one of the great Iranian director’s finest films, moves at the pace of life. Not life as in the hustle and bustle or stolid banality of one’s everyday experiences, but life as in the gradual evolution of humankind’s basic existence. Reflecting the lives of those who inhabit the rural Kurdish village that serves as the film’s setting, The Wind Will Carry Us unfolds slowly and episodically, with its drama, or lack thereof, coming and going at a capricious moment’s notice.
Kiarostami begins the film as we follow a car driven by disembodied voices that bicker about directions and banter about the countryside. They drive and drive, along winding roads,...
Written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami
Iran 1999
To say that Abbas Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us is an unhurried film would be quite the understatement. This deliberately crafted and contemplative work, one of the great Iranian director’s finest films, moves at the pace of life. Not life as in the hustle and bustle or stolid banality of one’s everyday experiences, but life as in the gradual evolution of humankind’s basic existence. Reflecting the lives of those who inhabit the rural Kurdish village that serves as the film’s setting, The Wind Will Carry Us unfolds slowly and episodically, with its drama, or lack thereof, coming and going at a capricious moment’s notice.
Kiarostami begins the film as we follow a car driven by disembodied voices that bicker about directions and banter about the countryside. They drive and drive, along winding roads,...
- 8/5/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Critic and director Mark Cousins is receiving rave reviews at Cannes for his inspirational film about cinema and childhood. He tells Charlotte Higgins why it's the decade of the cine-essay
You can tell a lot about Mark Cousins from his tattoos. The Edinburgh-based, Belfast-born presenter, critic and film-maker, whose richly poetic A Story of Children and Film has just premiered to five-star reviews at Cannes, has arms inscribed with words. There's "Forough" on his right. That's Forough Farrokhzad, "the first great Iranian film director," he says. "Her The House Is Black is one of the greatest movies ever made." On his left there's "Le Corbusier", the French architect; and "Eisenstein", the Russian director about whom he recently made a film while undertaking a three-day tramp through Mexico City.
Then, on the inside of his left arm, are the words "the oar and the winnowing fan". This is a reference to...
You can tell a lot about Mark Cousins from his tattoos. The Edinburgh-based, Belfast-born presenter, critic and film-maker, whose richly poetic A Story of Children and Film has just premiered to five-star reviews at Cannes, has arms inscribed with words. There's "Forough" on his right. That's Forough Farrokhzad, "the first great Iranian film director," he says. "Her The House Is Black is one of the greatest movies ever made." On his left there's "Le Corbusier", the French architect; and "Eisenstein", the Russian director about whom he recently made a film while undertaking a three-day tramp through Mexico City.
Then, on the inside of his left arm, are the words "the oar and the winnowing fan". This is a reference to...
- 5/20/2013
- by Charlotte Higgins
- The Guardian - Film News
Fat Shaker, a surreal film about an obese and oppressive father and his son, is a refection on wider frustrations and corruption
There is something about the way he breathes, about the way he carries the weight around his waist, and the way his lips hang from his face.
Levon Haftvan's physique is as heavy as his acting, and he is ideally cast in Mohammad Shirvani's latest feature, Fat Shaker (2012). The strange, frustrating, dreamlike story of the relationship between a father (Haftvan) and his deaf son (Hassan Rostami), unsettled by the entrance of a young woman (Maryam Palizban), defies expectations and exercises a daring liberty in the process. The film gained international attention when it won one of the Hivos Tiger awards at the Rotterdam film festival, and it became the first Iranian feature to be screened at the Sundance film festival.
Although the plot may sound recycled...
There is something about the way he breathes, about the way he carries the weight around his waist, and the way his lips hang from his face.
Levon Haftvan's physique is as heavy as his acting, and he is ideally cast in Mohammad Shirvani's latest feature, Fat Shaker (2012). The strange, frustrating, dreamlike story of the relationship between a father (Haftvan) and his deaf son (Hassan Rostami), unsettled by the entrance of a young woman (Maryam Palizban), defies expectations and exercises a daring liberty in the process. The film gained international attention when it won one of the Hivos Tiger awards at the Rotterdam film festival, and it became the first Iranian feature to be screened at the Sundance film festival.
Although the plot may sound recycled...
- 4/23/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
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